Juque

What is CV14?

CV14 (Juque) is a point on the midline of the upper abdomen, just below the tip of the breastbone. Its name is often translated as "Great Palace".

In traditional Chinese medicine, CV14 sits on the Conception Vessel, the midline channel that runs up the front of the body. It is classed as the Front-Mu point of the Heart, meaning tradition treated it as the place on the front of the torso where the Heart's state was said to show itself. That gave it a long association with the chest, the mind and the upper digestive tract.

Classical texts link CV14 to palpitations, chest tightness, anxiety, restless sleep, hiccups, reflux and a sour, churning stomach. It is taught in essentially every acupuncture curriculum, so its traditional standing is high.

Here is the honest verdict, and it applies to everything below. A point being old, famous and in every textbook tells you that people have used it for a long time. It does not tell you that it works, and it does not tell you that it is safe for you. Those are separate questions, and this page keeps them separate.

On the evidence question, there is very little to report. No controlled human trial has tested finger pressure on CV14 by itself for any condition. Where CV14 appears in research, it is one point inside a larger acupuncture prescription, so nothing can be pinned on CV14 specifically. The wider acupressure literature is mostly small, short-term and unblinded, which makes it easy for expectation to look like effect.

What CV14 realistically offers a layperson is a few minutes of slow, gentle, self-directed pressure over the upper belly while breathing out. Some people find that settling. That is a reasonable thing to try and a reasonable thing to expect. It is not a treatment for heart disease, reflux disease or an anxiety disorder, and chest or upper-abdominal symptoms deserve a proper diagnosis before you start pressing on them.

Where is CV14 and how do you find it?

CV14 sits on the midline of the upper belly, about two thumb-widths below the tip of your breastbone (the xiphoid process).

• Sit or lie down comfortably. Lying on your back with knees bent lets the belly soften, which makes the bony landmarks much easier to feel.
• Find the bottom of your breastbone. Run a fingertip down the centre of your chest until the hard bone ends and the softer belly begins. That small pointed ending is the xiphoid process. In some people it juts forward; in others it tucks inward.
• Drop two thumb-widths straight down. From that tip, move about two of your own thumb-widths (roughly 4–5 cm, or 2 cun) down the midline towards your navel. Stay exactly in the centre line.
• Check the proportion. The distance from the breastbone tip to the navel is counted as 8 cun in tradition. CV14 sits about a quarter of the way down that stretch, so it is clearly in the upper belly, not halfway.
• Feel for the soft spot. You should be on soft tissue between the lower ribs, not on bone and not on the rib edges to either side. Many people notice this area feels tender, bloated or oddly sensitive.

Neighbouring points can confuse you, so be clear about which one you want. CV15 is higher, directly under the breastbone tip. CV12 is lower, halfway between breastbone tip and navel. CV14 is the one in between, nearer the top.

Body sizes differ, so always use your own thumb rather than a fixed number of centimetres. If you cannot confidently find the xiphoid process, do not press hard while hunting for it. Work with light, flat fingertip contact until the landmark is obvious.

This is a surface landmark for finger pressure only. Nothing on this page involves needles, skin penetration, heat or suction of any kind.

How do you apply pressure to CV14?

1. Wait after eating. Leave at least an hour or two after a meal. Pressing a full stomach is uncomfortable and can push acid upward.
2. Get settled. Lie on your back with knees bent, or sit back in a supported chair. Let your belly go soft rather than holding it tight.
3. Place two or three fingerpads flat. Use the flat pads of your index and middle fingers, not a fingernail or a knuckle. A broad contact spreads the force over soft tissue.
4. Press lightly as you breathe out. Sink in slowly on an exhale to a pressure you would call gentle — around a 2 or 3 out of 10. The upper belly is not a place for deep digging.
5. Hold, then release. Hold steady for 20 to 60 seconds while breathing slowly, then ease off over a couple of seconds. Small, slow circles are fine if static pressure feels dull.
6. Repeat a few rounds. Three to five rounds is plenty for one session. Once or twice a day is a sensible ceiling.
7. Finish and notice. Rest a moment before standing. If you feel light-headed, sit until it passes.

Keep your fingers off the pointed tip of the breastbone itself. That small piece of bone bruises easily and can crack under hard pressure, particularly in older people or anyone with thinning bones.

Stop immediately if pressure brings on sharp pain, a pulsing sensation under your fingers, nausea that builds, breathlessness, or pain that spreads into the jaw, neck, back or arm. Stop also if the area is tender in a way that lingers afterwards.

Gentle and brief beats hard and long here. More pressure does not buy a better result, and the upper abdomen sits over organs that do not benefit from being pushed.

What is CV14 traditionally used for?

• Palpitations and chest tightness. As the Front-Mu point of the Heart, CV14 was the classical go-to for a fluttering or pounding chest. There are no human trials of acupressure at CV14 for palpitations, and a new or changed heart rhythm is a reason to see a doctor, not to self-treat.
• Anxiety and agitation. Tradition describes CV14 for a "restless spirit" — worry sitting in the chest. Trials of acupressure for anxiety do exist, but they use other points, are small and unblinded, and cannot be read across to CV14. Slow breathing with light pressure may feel calming, which is a modest and honest claim.
• Nausea and reflux. Classical use covers sour regurgitation, belching and a churning stomach. The best-evidenced acupressure point for nausea is PC6 at the wrist, where repeated controlled trials show a real if modest benefit. CV14 has nothing comparable behind it.
• Hiccups. Points along the lower breastbone, CV14 among them, appear in traditional formulas for hiccups. Evidence is limited to case reports and small uncontrolled series using needles, not self-applied pressure.
• Upper abdominal discomfort. CV14 features in acupuncture prescriptions for functional dyspepsia (indigestion with no structural cause). Those studies combine several points, so no effect can be attributed to CV14 on its own.
• Difficulty sleeping. Tradition links a settled Heart to easier sleep, so CV14 shows up in insomnia formulas. Acupressure sleep research is mostly small, short and reliant on self-report, and does not isolate this point.

Across all of these, the pattern is the same: long tradition, thin point-specific evidence. Treat CV14 as a comfort practice you can try alongside proper care, not as a replacement for diagnosis or prescribed treatment.

Are there tips for using CV14 effectively?

• Let the breath do the work. Press as you breathe out and ease off as you breathe in. The slow exhale is probably doing more for how you feel than the pressure itself, and that is worth knowing.
• Use flat fingerpads, never a point. Two fingerpads spread the force across soft tissue. A nail, knuckle or massage tool concentrates it onto the ribs and the breastbone tip, where it does no good.
• Go lighter than you think. The upper abdomen is thin-walled and sensitive. If you are grimacing, you have gone too deep. Comfortable pressure held calmly is the aim.
• Pick a quiet moment. Evening, before sleep, or during a break works better than squeezing it in while rushing. Tense abdominal muscles make the point hard to find anyway.
• Keep sessions short and regular. A few minutes once or twice a day beats a long, hard session. There is no reward for grinding away at it.
• Try PC6 for nausea first. If queasiness is your main problem, the inner wrist point PC6 has far better human evidence. CV14 can sit alongside it, but should not replace it.
• Keep a simple note. Jot down what you felt before and after for a week or two. If nothing shifts, stop. Self-honesty saves you from months of habit with no benefit.
• Warm hands help. Cold fingers on the belly make people tense up. Rub your hands together first so the contact is pleasant.
• Fit it around meals. An hour or two after eating is comfortable. Straight after a big meal usually is not.

Finally, treat CV14 as one small comfort tool. If an underlying problem is driving the symptom, the useful work is getting that problem diagnosed and treated.

What do people get wrong with CV14?

• Expecting a cure. The commonest error is believing a famous point will fix palpitations, reflux or anxiety. No acupressure point cures these. At best CV14 may feel soothing for a short while.
• Pressing the breastbone tip. Many people land on the hard xiphoid process instead of the soft hollow two thumb-widths below it. That bruises, hurts and can crack a small, fragile piece of bone.
• Confusing it with CV12. CV12 sits halfway between breastbone tip and navel. CV14 is much higher, about a quarter of the way down. Videos often blur the two.
• Digging in hard. People assume deeper means stronger. In the upper abdomen, deep pressure just presses on organs and sets off nausea or a dull ache that lasts for hours.
• Using it on chest pain. Treating chest pressure, tightness or pain spreading to the jaw or arm with acupressure wastes time that may matter enormously. Those symptoms need emergency assessment.
• Pressing straight after eating. A full stomach plus midline pressure often means belching, reflux or discomfort. Wait an hour or two.
• Drifting off the midline. Fingers slide sideways onto the rib margin, so the reader is pressing ribs, not CV14. Re-check the centre line each session.
• Pressing over something unexamined. A lump, a bulge, a new tender spot or a hernia in the midline should be checked by a clinician before anyone leans on it.
• Stopping prescribed treatment. Some people swap medication for acupressure. Nothing in the evidence supports that, and it can be dangerous with heart or reflux medicines.
• Overdoing it. Long daily sessions do not improve results and leave the area sore.

What does the research on CV14 actually say?

There is no useful point-specific human research on CV14. We could not identify a controlled trial that tested finger pressure on CV14 alone for any condition, so nothing on this page rests on direct evidence.

Where CV14 does appear in the published literature, it is as one component of multi-point acupuncture prescriptions — typically in trials of functional dyspepsia (indigestion with no structural cause), insomnia or anxiety, usually conducted in China and usually using needles rather than finger pressure. Those studies cannot tell you what CV14 contributed. If a formula of six points helps, the effect could come from any of them, from the attention and rest involved, or from expectation.

That matters because of how this field is built. Most acupressure research is small, short and unblinded: participants know whether they are pressing a point, so belief and the ritual of lying still and breathing slowly are folded into the result. Self-reported outcomes such as anxiety, sleep quality and stomach comfort are exactly the outcomes most sensitive to that problem.

It is worth saying what good evidence looks like, for contrast. Acupressure at PC6 on the inner wrist for nausea and vomiting has been tested in many randomised trials across pregnancy, surgery and chemotherapy. The benefit is modest and not universal, but it is real and repeated. That is the strongest case in the whole acupressure literature, and CV14 is nowhere near it.

So the honest reading is this: CV14 has deep traditional roots and almost no modern evidence base of its own. Absence of evidence is not proof that it does nothing — it means nobody has looked properly. Treat any confident claim about CV14's effects, online or in person, as unsupported until a trial exists. Use it, if you use it, as a gentle self-care habit while getting real symptoms properly investigated.